Sunday, 24 June 2007

Cricketing Mismanagement

The thrashing of the West Indies on the field of play on the current tour of England is symptomatic of the malaise that afflicts Caribbean cricket. As if the embarrassment on the field wasn’t enough the WICB has made a series of blunders in the past two weeks that serve to highlight the way this old boys network has destroyed our cricket. I cited some articles in my post of June 14th and here are two even harsher ones, one by Tony Cozier and the other by Martin Williamson.

The ICC also demonstrated how much of an incompetent organisation it is when last week it announced the banning of the five officials who had stood in the farcical World Cup final in April from the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa in September. Now I have no problem with disciplining those idiots who presided over the ludicrous situation on the night of April 28th, but what I do have a problem with is Malcolm Speed’s pompous statement: “It would have been easy to let sleeping dogs lie and pretend nothing happened, but the reality is that the playing control team made a serious and fundamental error that caused the final of our flagship event to end in disarray and confusion.” This is the Chief Executive of a body that along with West Indian officials mismanaged the running of the World Cup and who refused to accept that the ICC bore any responsibility for the tournament’s failure! If the umpires and match referee can be disciplined for their part in the farce, then surely Speed and the rest of the inept and corrupt should also be held accountable!

2 comments:

Thank you for my ongoing education on the state of West Indian cricket. :P Those two articles you pointed to were great - very very informative.

This situation is frustrating and I just can't believe how it goes on and on and on ....

I thought the suggestion Tony Cozier cited from the Jamaican Gleaner was a good one. Perhaps that's what we need to do - withdraw and regroup. In the present state if we don't we can just expect more of the same humiliation.

By the way that article on the rebel tour I mentioned some time back came from Cricinfo, so I am sure you have read it already: http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/wisdencricketer/content/story/286356.html

Thanks. It is wonderful to be able to spark interest in the great game :)

I am pessimistic about West Indian cricket. I cannot honestly see those parasites at the helm agreeing to give up their positions of influence and there is no way we can ever improve with them in charge. The only way is for a total revolution in the administration and structure of the game but again I am cynical about this happening.

Thanks for the article which I did read before. We always have a debate among work colleagues about the rebel tours and this was one which caused some discussion. My view is that they were traitors and I can never bring myself to forgive them! They sold their souls and betrayed West Indians and all black people when they agreed to go to apartheid South Africa as "honourary whites" for money and in contravention of a sanctions regime which non-white people had to fight to get agreement on.